Unveiling a newly streamlined street sign in Midtown, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan did not risk under-selling the faults of the old parking placards it will eventually replace.

The old collections of metal signs listing parking regulations, time restrictions and instructions on how to pay the meter turned street posts into “a cross between an Excel spreadsheet and a totem pole,” Sadik-Khan declared.

Deciphering whether a curbside parking spot is legal “shouldn’t require a Ph.D in transportation,” she added.

Not to be outdone were City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilmember Dan Garodnick, who first proposed city legislation to make signs more clear in 2011.

“They were making drivers crazy,” said Garodnick, who was identified by the DOT in a press release as “a longtime supporter of syntactic clarity,” and seemed to channel the critique comedian Louis CK. “People actually think that city is deliberately trying to confuse them in order to give them more tickets.” Read More »

City officials pressed ahead Monday with efforts to find a private company to manage New York’s parking meters, which cover more than 80,000 on-street parking spaces throughout the five boroughs.

The administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a request for qualifications Monday for potential vendors to run the city’s parking system, which rakes in more than $150 million per year and netted $93 million for the city’s coffers last year. Read More »

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to allow motorists to buy muni-meter time and use that time at any location with the same meter rate. Some motorists who have attempted to transfer muni-meter time have complained because they’ve received tickets, council members said.

“Parking in New York City is difficult as it is—we don’t want to make parking more difficult,” said Council Member James Vacca, the bill’s sponsor. “If you purchase the time, the entire time you purchased is the time you bought.” Read More »

Among New York’s chief urban annoyances are the parking-violation stickers that the city’s Department of Sanitation slap onto vehicles that interfere with street cleanings.

The stickers, produced in screaming neon green, use a fiendishly strong adhesive. As anyone who’s been the recipient of one of these stickers knows, removing them from a vehicle requires hours of chipping and scrubbing, along with copious amounts of Goo Gone — a punishment almost more maddening than the $35 or $65 ticket that drivers must pay for blocking a street sweeper.

It turns out that the inspiration for the penalty stickers came from one New Yorker’s brand of vigilante curbside justice. In 1987, the city sanitation commissioner at the time saw a parked car blocking a Lower East Side driveway. The driveway’s angry owner had festooned the offending car with stickers. Read More »

A Manhattan grand jury weighed a possible indictment Friday against a man who punched a petite woman and sent her into a coma during an altercation over a parking space.

The lawyer representing Oscar Fuller, the man involved in the parking dispute, is not disputing that his 34-year-old client punched Lana Rosas in the face on the night of Feb. 25 in a confrontation over an East 14th Street parking spot. Rosas was standing in the space, holding it for her boyfriend.

Even though Rosas is less than five-feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds, the attorney said Friday that Fuller was acting in self defense. “They exchanged words, my client went to speak with her and she ran at him, accused my client of trying to attack her and began to hit him about the face multiple times,” said Thomas Kenniff, the attorney for Fuller.

Kenniff said that as Fuller was being struck by Rosas, he spotted her boyfriend running across the street toward him. “Now, as he perceives it, he believes he’s being attacked by two people,” the attorney said. “He throws one punch to the woman’s face, to defend himself, gets in his car and removes himself from the situation.” Read More »

Planned parking meter rate increases in the four boroughs outside of Manhattan — and on streets north of 86th Street in Manhattan — have been deferred as part of a budget deal negotiated between the City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, officials said Thursday.

As The Wall Street Journal reported, the council successfully persuaded the mayor to restore $35 million in cuts he ordered in November to this year’s budget as part of an effort to combat a multibillion deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 1. Most notably, the mayor rescinded a plan to shutter 20 fire companies at night and restored cuts to programs affecting children and senior citizens.

As part of the deal, the mayor also agreed to roll back several fee increases he ordered.

Last year, for instance, the mayor gave the green light for the Department of Transportation to increase the rate of passenger parking at 47,532 single-space meters and 1,351 muni-meters citywide, including Manhattan above 86th Street. The initiative was expected to raise $2.4 million this fiscal year and $13.8 million the following. Read More »